Retable de San Giacomo dell’Orio

Lotto signed and dated this altarpiece 1546 on a small cartouche at the foot of the Virgin's throne, and added the name of the brotherhood official who commissioned it. It was one of the last things he painted in Venice. He had come back to the city hoping for the recognition that always seemed to go to Titian and the younger men instead, and within a few years he gave up, moving to the Marche and ending his days as a lay brother at the shrine of Loreto. The picture keeps quietly to its task. The Madonna sits high on her throne against a green cloth, with the physician saints Cosmas and Damian and the apostles James and Andrew gathered below. It still hangs in the church it was made for, San Giacomo dell'Orio.